Wood Suggestions for Smoking BB Ribs


 
J

John Vale

TVWBB Fan
I am getting better at smoking BB ribs, but up to this point I have not used any wood for adding flavoring smoke. I recently had hickory smoked ribs and found the hickory flavor to be over powering. What woods would you suggest I use for a lighter smoke flavor? I plan to use the old Kinsford charcoal. Also, where can I buy the wood on-line. Do I need chunks, or will pellets do?

Thanks,

John
 
Answers to most of your questions here. Another good online source is Cabela's ( www.cabelas.com ), but be advised their "approximately 10 lb" bags are closer to 8, on average. Shipping is reasonable, though.
 
I would suggest using a fruit wood like apple or peach or any other fruit wood you can get your hands on. Quite honestly, I don't think it really matters a great deal, just don't over do it. A couple chunks is plenty.
 
What I have used is Hickory and Apple in a 2 to 1 ratio. Strangely enough I bought the Hickory needing oak and got the apple instead of cherry, but the ribs turned out terrific.

Perry
 
One of my favorite rib cooks (2nd place in Oklahoma State Pork Council pork cooking competition) are BB sprayed with peach juicy-juice during the cook, smoked over peach wood, and a final light glaze of Head Country cut with a little peace juice and a bit of jalapeno-peach preserves blended in: Keri's Jala-Peachy Baby Backs.

Candy Sue Weaver of BBQers Delight will send you some free packets of various flavors of pellets if you ask her - don't remember where the thread is, but search TVWB forum on the words Candy Weaver pellets and you should find it. [On edit, I found the thread - it's HERE. ] I have pretty much every flavor BBQers Delight makes, and use them and/or chunks on a regular basis (the "real" woodpile for the stickburner contains apple, peach, hickory, and lots of pecan, and the wood house additionally has bags of big cherry and apricot chunks so the WSMs get their choice.) You can do a perfectly great cook using only pellets for smoke. Make a foil pouch out of doubled HD foil, put about 1/3 cup pellets in, fold over the top twice and seal tightly. Poke ONE hole in the foil with toothpick, and lay the foil on top of your coals. One packet is plenty for chicken, maybe one early and one later for a load of ribs.

Pork can take strong smoke - hickory is good, but we tend to use pecan/apple combo most - partially because those are what we have the most of, I guess, but it's a good combo.

Keri C, still smokin' on Tulsa Time (and occasionally cooking comp as Hot Wire BBQ)
 
Pecan most times, but cherry or apple is good also. I like hickory on ribs, but a little goes a long way for ribs. I love Mesquite, but never use it for ribs anymore. Pecan 80% of the time.
 
If you can get some sugar maple it makes wonderful ribs as well. I usually use cherry mixed with hickory or pecan because sugar maple is a little harder to come by, but if you can get you hands on some it's great with ribs.
 
Here is my 2 cents worth. I think most of us learned this by trial and error. I have found that mixing a hardwood i.e. Hickory or Maple w/ a fruitwood i.e. Apple gives a rich and deep flavor to the meat. I am not a big fan of cherry, I think it gives a bit of a bitter taste or maybe thats me.
 
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